I know it's apples and oranges, but I'm having a hard time deciding if selling my JX-8P (+PG 800) in favour of a Waldorf keyboard is a good idea. I'd love an XTK, but if not a Blofeld. I'm just thinking the JX-8P overlaps too much with the other synths in my setup...

I've got a Juno 60, 2 x Prophet 600, Pro One, 20mini and the JX. Although I've learned to love the JX, I find myself going towards either the 600 or 60 for all my analog pad duties, something the JX obviously excels at. The 600 gives me a sound that has some bite, while the 60 gives me pleasant chorus drenched pads. The obvious answer is to sell one Prophet, but I wanted to upgrade both my 600s with the firmware update and then chain them together. Sad, I know.

I've since decided that what's missing from my setup is something digital, especially with the departure of my ESQ. I'd prefer a unit with plenty of knobs, but I'd settle for a Blofeld-esque synth. I do love the wavetable sound, and definitely think it will add a dimension that is lacking from my overall sound. Funnily enough the JX can get some near digital sounds, and can get pretty crazy with it's modulation capabilities....but I still go to it for pads.

What would you do? Does the JX overlap too much with my current synth setup? Should I keep and just learn to love the JX instead?

Do the Prophets or the Pro One have anything like the JX's sync/cross-mod abilities? (I'm not super-familiar with SCI stuff.) I've been impressed by the sounds you can get out of it using those - I got some quite nice drum sounds by exploiting the sync+Xmod setting and thickening them up with chorus. If the Prophet 600s will do you for jack-of-all-trades I suppose you could do without the JX, but it really is quite a versatile synth.

I was in a similar position last year, with a couple of Junos, a JX-10 w/PG, and a whole bunch of nice analogues that covered pretty much everything. Digital-wise, I had a DX-7 and DW-8000, I think. The DW sounded great but did not get much real use, so I sold it and bought a Blofeld (partly a space issue).

I ended up selling the JX. I sometimes ask myself why. It sounded glorious and was a pleasure to play. For me though, it was almost too nice. I think with a Juno 60 you can get those soft pads easily enough, and that Roland finish, and if your other synths do edgier things well, then the JX is sounding like overlap, however much you like it.

As for the Blofeld, the DW had more balls somehow but was hard to fit in with my other things. The Blofeld is also a bit of a black sheep, really. Depends on your style. There are some good PPG-alike sounds to be had in there, and I prefer its "PPG" filter model to the regular 24dB LP. It's versatile but not much fun to program. I had an XT for a while too, and I didn't care for the programming on that either, but I did like the sound - perhaps more so than the Blofeld, though I never had them alongside.

If nothing else, the Blofeld would be a reasonably priced digital addition to your setup, though resale value is not so great.

Have you considered the Evolver? I had a MEK for a few years, was very good. Ultimately not my cup of tea, but did lots. The Evolvers have the Prophet VS waves in there, though you can't sweep them like wavetables. But they do have analogue filters, which is one of the aspects of the Blofeld I feel lacking. It's smoother than the XT I think, but has a better display for editing. The interface on all these things is like painting through a letterbox, though. Even the XT, because all those knobs are the wrong ones. Ha!

Thanks nathanscribe for the input! It's good to hear you went through a similar dilemma. I have thought of the MEK, but I had a Mopho keyboard for a number of months, and it didn't do it for me so I never really dug into other new DSI offerings. The addition of the VS waves would be nice, I'd admit. Do the encoders on these synths cause as many problems as everyone claims? I guess the same could be said for the Blofeld.

commodorejohn wrote:Do the Prophets or the Pro One have anything like the JX's sync/cross-mod abilities? (I'm not super-familiar with SCI stuff.) I've been impressed by the sounds you can get out of it using those - I got some quite nice drum sounds by exploiting the sync+Xmod setting and thickening them up with chorus. If the Prophet 600s will do you for jack-of-all-trades I suppose you could do without the JX, but it really is quite a versatile synth.

Prophet 600s don't have as many routing options as the JX, but enough to make some unique sounds. I was mucking about with my JX and yeah I was able to get some really nice snare/hat sounds, kicks not quite so good. Hmmm/

commodorejohn wrote:Do the Prophets or the Pro One have anything like the JX's sync/cross-mod abilities? (I'm not super-familiar with SCI stuff.) I've been impressed by the sounds you can get out of it using those - I got some quite nice drum sounds by exploiting the sync+Xmod setting and thickening them up with chorus. If the Prophet 600s will do you for jack-of-all-trades I suppose you could do without the JX, but it really is quite a versatile synth.

Prophet 600s don't have as many routing options as the JX, but enough to make some unique sounds. I was mucking about with my JX and yeah I was able to get some really nice snare/hat sounds, kicks not quite so good. Hmmm/

Did you mess with the Toms preset at all? I seldom go to the JX for drum sounds, but I keep meaning to explore that preset for bass drum like textures.

commodorejohn wrote:I got a pretty solid kick using the old self-oscillation trick plus unison and chorus. I can get you the patch settings.

. I would be interested in hearing this! I usually keep unison/ chorus sounds out of the low end unless I want to do something really trippy. Does the bass drum play nicely with other sounds in its frequency range?

ninja6485 wrote:I would be interested in hearing this! I usually keep unison/ chorus sounds out of the low end unless I want to do something really trippy. Does the bass drum play nicely with other sounds in its frequency range?

Yeah, it's a pretty restrained acoustic-style kick (I've never cared for 808-style kicks because of how difficult they are to work around in the low end.) Here's the parameters:

Zmeinogorsk wrote:The addition of the VS waves would be nice, I'd admit. Do the encoders on these synths cause as many problems as everyone claims?

I had no trouble at all with the MEK.

The original rack version of the Waldorf Microwave had analogue filters but otherwise is more limited than the subsequent models. My personal view of the XT was that it sounded good, particularly when using the filters sparingly. The Blofeld doesn't have the same grit/bite as the XT, but the emulated PPG filter is nice. The XT has 4 outputs, the Blofeld 2. The Blofeld is easier to edit. The Blofeld keyboard has horrible pitch & mod wheels; I use the module with a 73-note controller. Auditioning wavetables on either machine is easier if you set up a patch routing the mod wheel to wave position.

GuyaGuy wrote:1 Sell the PG8002 Buy an iPad3 Buy Waldorf Nave4 Buy iPG-800 5 BOOM! You got the Waldorf sound and still have the JX8P

Lol.

It wasn't entirely in jest. The iPG-800 makes a nice controller. You'd only be out $100 (or $0 if you get a used iPad). If you ever decided that the Nave doesn't fit the bill there's a PPG synth too--and a controller for the Blofeld!

Having said that, I don't know if I'd need a Juno 60 AND a JX-8P.

nathanscribe wrote:

Zmeinogorsk wrote:The addition of the VS waves would be nice, I'd admit. Do the encoders on these synths cause as many problems as everyone claims?

I had no trouble at all with the MEK.

And you can always get the Pot Edition. Or upgrade. But I think it was mostly the early MEKs that had the encoder issues. For wavetables, I actually prefer the Evolver to the Blofeld because you can leverage their lo-fi character. The Blofeld tends to be cleaner and chillier.